ProjectZero is the vision of creating economic growth in the Sønderborg region, based on a CO2 neutral development.
Our goal is to reduce the region’s domestic electricity consumption by half and the CO2-emission by 75 percent before 2020. By 2029, our ambition is to fully eliminate the region’s CO2-emission. The project’s primary focus is energy - intelligent management of energy consumption and converting energy production to sustainable sources. Subsequently, we will focus on the related environmental aspects.
The project consists of 9 main points:
Point 1 – Creating a CO2 baseline for Sønderborg through global benchmarking
Point 2 – Changing our values, opinions and behaviour – from primary school to PhD.
Point 3 – Developing a sustainable city plan for Sønderborg – regarding both energy and other environmental aspects
Point 4 – Developing new, sustainable housing concepts with integrated energy/environmental projects
Point 5 – Designing the Gehry Harbour project in a sustainable way
Point 6 – Supporting sustainable transport solutions
Point 7 – Developing agriculture in a sustainable way
Point 8 – Supporting economic growth for company clusters, focusing on intelligent energy- and environmental management and creating 5,000 new jobs
Point 9 – Presenting results and experiences to the rest of the world
The realisation of the project is based on a close cooperation between the companies, the citizens, the educational institutions and the local authorities of the Sønderborg region.
Project Zero A/S has been established in the summer of 2007 to secure the legal and organisational manifestation of the ProjectZero vision. The ProjectZero Fund is the core of the process. The fund has been established with an overall asset of app. 20 million DKK (app. 2.7 million EURO). Because of the broad range of investors, (SydEnergi, DONG Energy, Danfoss, Nordea Danmark Fonden and the Council of Sønderborg), the organisation has to be regarded as a PPP – a public-private partnership.
Peter Rathje has been employed as CEO of ProjectZero. The project’s core competence lies in its energy know-how and in project leadership. These competences will be embedded in both the project itself and in a broad network of consultants, which at the moment consists of more than 40 persons in Danish engineering and architect companies. In the future, the network will also include CLEANTECH companies in the region of South Denmark.